This afternoon, I’m meeting with the realtor who sold our last Florida house and who sold us the house I’m about to put on the market. In a scant 10 months, I should be living in Maryland with my husband and my daughter should be settled in her college apartment.
We’re starting to prepare for the move already. We’ll be sorting, packing, selling, or donating our stuff. But there’s one category of stuff that I don’t know how to handle.
I have a kajillion return address stickers. I bought a roll of 500 just after we moved here 3 years ago, and we have been sent, at various times, hundreds more. Some are in my name, some in my husband’s, some both. Most came from charities that hoped we’d feel obligated to make a donation in return for the stickers.
Last night as I was paying bills and stickering envelopes, it occurred to me that I’ll have scads of these left over. Now, I could just toss them in the trash, but there’s nothing clever or creative about that. I could strip naked and cover my body with them - all in the name of art, you know. I could stick one on another and see how big a stack I could make.
Help me, fellow Dopers! I need ideas! I need inspiration! I need to do something spectacular with my return address sitckers.
Quick nit from a fundraiser: those stickers aren’t meant to make you feel obligated. Fundraisers are under the mistaken impression that these gifts express our thanks for your donation.
It’s the accompanying request letter and return envelope that are supposed to make you feel obligated!
Weren’t you wondering whether to paint some of the rooms before putting the house on the market? Perhaps you could paper a small room (a powder room, for instance) with return-address stickers.
You could write seductive stories about what a lonely, passionate woman you are and attach them to tumbleweeds with your stickers, scattering them throughout the Southwest.
You’re going to be filling out a bunch of change of address cards. You can slap the stickers onto the “old address” part of the card.
Sometimes I cut off the address part and stick just my name in books & on CDs (as a reminder to anyone who might borrow them).
If you’re using a mover, put a sticker on every box that goes on the van. Even though the stickers have your old address, they can help to identify any lost boxes (and unbelievably they do get lost going from A to B in a truck).
I’m sorry, lainaf, but you get a demerit. I specifically requested spectacular ideas, not sensible or practical ones. I need to make a splash! A statement! A declaration of spectacularity!!
>Martha Stewart voice>Get a tablecloth with a waxed surface. Create of daring and spectacular mosaic by covering the tablecloth with the address stickers–perhaps a patchwork style (a block all facing in one direction, then another block with them all turned 90 degrees, etc.), or maybe stripes–you decide!
When yuu have covered the entire table cloth, either keep it as is for a nice wall hanging for your new place, or laminate it and use it as a table cloth. Either way, it will bring you years of joy and help you remember the special times you had at that address.
Contact hundreds of wackos with a cause, charities you don’t agree with, televangelists who just want your money, sales organizations that will merrily bug you forever, and so on.
Contact them all. Use the return address stickers.
You will get on hundreds of mailing lists, causing these jerks to waste a fortune and be protecting hundreds of other people from junk mail.
The new tenants of your home will simply discard the junk mail, since it’s not for them, or if they’re especially scrupulous, will mark it RETURN TO SENDER and send it back. Either way, spam organizations are wasting a fortune…
I notice no one has voted for my naked-covered-with-stickers idea… That disappoints me. I figured the mere mention of naked would bring creativity out of the woodwork.
But the clothing idea - If Tommy can put his name on crap, if Calvin can, by golly, why can’t I? The Hickory Glen Collection - available only at Sears. I’ll get a case of t-shirts and start stickering. Who wants to be the first to own a FCM Original?
Well, my first impulse was to say “offer them for sale on e-bay.”
How about sending a sheet of them (or a 6" strip from the roll) with each bill you pay from now until you move?
Or (more seriously) you could donate them to a day care or head start or some other kiddie type place. My kids used to love to play with any kind of stickers when they were little.
